Steve Smith wins ICC Cricketer of the Year 2015 award; No Indian in honours' list

Bengaluru, Dec 23: Australia's captain Steve Smith today won both ICC Cricketer of the Year 2015 (Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy) and ICC Test Cricketer of the Year awards. South Africa's One Day Internationals skipper AB de Villiers took the ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year honour. There was no Indian in the list of awards this year.

On Wednesday (December 23), the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced the full list of its annual awards. Smith struck it rich with 2 top awards.

Australia's paceman Josh Hazlewood was adjudged the Emerging Player of the Year.

"Steve Smith has become the fourth Australia player and 11th player overall to win the prestigious Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy after being named as the ICC Cricketer of the Year 2015," ICC said in a media release.

Smith follows in the footsteps of Ricky Ponting (2006 and 2007), Mitchell Johnson (2009 and 2014) and Michael Clarke (2013) to lift the coveted trophy since the inception of the awards in 2004.

Smith was also adjudged the ICC Test Cricketer of the Year, which has made him only the seventh cricketer after Dravid (2004), Kallis (2005), Ponting (2006), Sangakkara (2012), Clarke (2013) and Johnson (2014) to bag the two coveted prizes in the same year.

During the voting period, which ran from 18 September 2014 to 13 September 2015, the 26-year-old from New South Wales finished as the leading run-scorer in Tests with 1,734 runs in 25 innings of 13 matches at an average of 82.57. This included seven centuries and six half-centuries.

AB de Villiers

In June, Smith became the second youngest batsman after Tendulkar to achieve the number-one ranking in the ICC Player Rankings for Test Batsmen after scoring 199 and 54 not out against the West Indies in the Kingston Test.

In 26 One-Day Internationals, Smith scored 1,249 runs at an average of just under 60 with four centuries and eight half-centuries. He was a member of the Australia side which won the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 in Australia and New Zealand earlier this year.

Smith said he was "incredibly honoured" to win the awards. "Given that there are so many great players around the world, I'm incredibly honoured to receive these awards. While team success is always my number-one motivation, awards like this are very special. I'm thrilled and very proud to receive them," the right-handed batsman said.

"I will look back on 2015 with mixed feelings. Winning the ICC Cricket World Cup at home was a career highlight, and being appointed captain is a great honour, but the disappointment of losing the Ashes remains.

"To be the best team that we can be, we have to become better at winning away from home, and that remains our motivation heading into 2016.

"I'd like to thank my teammates and my family for their support over the year. I'd also like to thank the voting panel for this recognition, which is very humbling," he added.

De Villiers said, ""It is an honour to be named as the ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year for 2015. It's certainly been a memorable year with many highlights but a lot of disappointments as well.

"If I was to look back, the century I scored against the West Indies at the Wanderers will probably go down as the most memorable knocks of the year. In saying that, centuries count for nothing if the team isn't winning, so hopefully in the future I can contribute to many more Proteas wins."